2023 NCAA DI Cross Country Regional Championships Friday Recap

Welcome to Regional Championships Friday!

We’re about to find out which teams earn automatic bids to the upcoming 2023 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Saturday, November 18, at Panorama Farms in Charlottesville, Virginia. Remember that you can watch the action from the Old Dominion without interruption LIVE on ESPNU beginning at 9:30 am ET with pre-race coverage.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard

Official qualifiers for NCAAs will be announced tomorrow on NCAA.com.

Keep reading to learn more about a jam-packed day of cross country.

NCAA DI Cross Country Automatic Qualifying Teams
Region		Men’s AQs		Women’s AQs
Great Lakes		Butler Wisconsin		Notre Dame Wisconsin
Mid-Atlantic		Princeton Villanova		Georgetown Penn State
Midwest		Oklahoma State Iowa State		Oklahoma State Iowa State
Mountain		Northern Arizona BYU		Northern Arizona BYU
Northeast		Iona Harvard		Syracuse Boston College
South		Tennessee Florida State		Tennessee Florida
South Central		Texas Arkansas		Arkansas Texas A&M
Southeast		North Carolina Eastern Kentucky		NC State Furman
West		Stanford Gonzaga		Stanford Oregon

Great Lakes Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

No. 9 Notre Dame won for a third-straight year, led by Olivia Markezich’s second-straight individual title. The Irish tallied 39 points as host No. 23 Wisconsin earned the final AQ spot with 71 points over No. 14 Michigan State (82). Michigan (150) and Ohio State (188) completed the top-5.

Markezich clocked 19:55.1 to win by 12.3 seconds over Ohio State’s Addie Engel as the duo went 1-2 for the second-straight year (they were also 2-3 in 2021). Two more Irish finished top-9 – Erin Strzelecki (sixth) and Andrea Markezich (ninth), Olivia’s sister.

Men’s 10k Championship

The Bulldogs had a big bite!

No. 12 Butler claimed its first regional team title with surprising ease, scoring 43 points to lead host No. 5 Wisconsin (70) for the two AQ berths. Close behind were No. 25 Michigan (93) and No. 17 Notre Dame (95) as Michigan State (127) completed the top-5.

The Badgers were led by 1-2 finish from Bob Liking and Jackson Sharp, with Liking getting the nod by 0.3 seconds, as Adam Spencer added a sixth-place finish. Meanwhile, Butler had four in the top-10 – Florian LePallec (fourth), freshman William Legarski (fifth), Matthew Forrester (ninth) and Will Minnette (tenth). Their fifth runner – Jesse Hamlin in 15^th – was last year’s individual runner-up in this meet.

Mountain Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Slowly, but surely, Gracelyn Larkin and her top-ranked Northern Arizona teammates moved up the pack at the Mountain Region Championships on Friday. Then, when the time was right, they struck and left the rest of the field in the dust.

Larkin, fifth at the 4.45k split, surged to the front of the pack and cruised the rest of the way to the individual title in 19:19.7, some five seconds ahead of her closest pursuer. That low stick by Larkin was the first of four Lumberjacks to cross the finish line in the top-10. Aliandrea Upshaw (sixth), Ruby Stone (seventh) and Maggi Congdon (tenth) joined Larkin in that regard.

NAU moved like a pack and showcased its depth at the Chaparral Ridge XC Course. The Lumberjacks had a spread of less than four seconds at both 1 mile and 2 mile and eventually finished with 39 points, 20 fewer than runner-up No. 3 BYU. The Cougars, led by a 2-3 finish by Aubrey Frentheway and Carmen Alder, held the lead until the final half of the race before NAU imposed its will.

No. 13 Colorado took third with 108 points, followed by No. 20 Utah in fourth with 115 and No. 22 Utah Valley in fifth with 157 points. All are likely at-large qualifiers to NCAAs.

Men’s 10k Championship

Northern Arizona waited 3.28k on Friday.

The top-ranked Lumberjacks figured that was long enough.

NAU blew the doors off the Mountain Region at the Chaparral Ridge XC Course in Lubbock, Texas. The Lumberjacks put six runners in the top-15 as they totaled just 36 points for a 53-point win over No. 3 BYU. That 36-point score is the second smallest by a team champion at this meet since 1997. Nico Young (second), Kang Nyoak (fifth), Drew Bosley (seventh) and Aaron Las Heras (eighth) all finished in the top-10 for NAU.

The eventual runner-up Cougars led by two points at the 3.28k split and needed to hold off a hard-charging No. 19 New Mexico squad led by individual champion Habtom Samuel. BYU went 12-16-17-18-26 for 89 points, while the Lobos took places 1-3-4-37-52 for 97 points. Samuel (28:57.6), Lukas Kiprop (third) and Evans Kipligat (fourth) were 1-2-3 as late as 9.5k.

No. 24 Air Force took fourth with 112 points and RV Montana State was fifth with 135 points.

South Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Reigning national runner-up Parker Valby of Florida took the South Region’s individual crown for the second-straight year, covering her home 6k course in 17:59.6. Valby led wire-to-wire, running the first mile in 4:56.4 to post an early five-second lead. Alabama freshman Doris Lemngole and Hilda Olemomoi placed second and third, respectively.

No. 15 Tennessee (61 points) took the region crown for the first time since 2005 as they placed four in the top-12 finishers led by sophomore Ashley Jones. Valby led No. 6 Florida (70 points) to a runner-up team showing as the Gators sat-out All-America transfer Amelia Mazza-Downie.

Rounding out the top five, No. 24 Ole Miss (95), No. 16 Alabama (98), and No. 19 Lipscomb (107) are likely at-large selections for the national championships.

Men’s 10k Championship

It’s the first cross country win of his collegiate career, and he made it a good one. Alabama junior Hillary Cheruiyot claimed the South Region in 28:26.8, finishing 3.2 seconds ahead of teammate and defending region champ Victor Kiprop. 

No. 21 Tennessee (68 points), winning the region title, and No. 29 Florida State (71 points), as the runner-up, claimed the automatic qualifying spots. Tennessee’s Yaseen Abdalla placed third overall as four Vols placed in the top 20. David Mullarkey, with a fourth-place showing, led the Seminoles who also had four in the meet’s top 20.

With a 1-2 punch at the top, No. 18 Alabama took third overall (86 points) while Ole Miss and Lipscomb took fourth and fifth, respectively.

Southeast Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Katelyn Tuohy led No. 2 NC State to a seventh-straight regional title as the Wolfpack totaled 52 points. No. 25 Furman grabbed the second AQ berth with 82 points ahead of No. 10 Virginia (123), Wake Forest (147) and RV North Carolina (154).

It was a second-straight individual crown for Tuohy, who was content to run amongst the leaders through 3.5k, where South Carolina freshman Judy Kosgei led in 11:31.6 as Tuohy was fourth 2.0 seconds back. By 5k, Tuohy had opened a gap of 9.6 seconds (16:25.7) before her final winning margin of 11.2 seconds (19:29.8, with Duke’s Amina Maatoug runner-up). UVA’s Margot Appelton was third as she and fourth-placer Judy Kosgei clocked identical times of 9:48.9.

The Wolfpack had three in the top-8 with Samantha Bush sixth and Grace Hartman eighth.

Men’s 10k Championship

No. 5 North Carolina easily defended its title with 38 points, but the rest of the field had little resemblance to the national rankings. No. 28 Eastern Kentucky earned the second AQ berth with 72 points, as unranked NC State (106), No. 29 Wake Forest (137) and No. 13 Virginia (140) rounded out the top-5. No. 14 Furman was eighth with 252 points.

Dylan Schubert of Furman raced to the individual title in 28:51.2 as the Tar Heels followed in 2-3 (Parker Wolfe and Alex Phillip with identical times of 28:53.3) with defending champ Nickolas Scudder of Charlotte fourth in 28:55.3. UNC added two more in the top-9  with Ethan Strand (sixth) and Jake Gebhardt (ninth).

West Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Stanford athletes were content for Kaylee Mitchell of Oregon State, Rosina Machu of Gonzaga and Greta Karinauskaite of California Baptist to contend for the individual title. The seventh-ranked Cardinal had bigger goals on Friday at the West Region Championships.

A 22-second spread between its No. 1 and No. 5 runners (Lucy Jenks and Grace Connolly, respectively), and all five of them in the top-25 paved the way for Stanford to cruise to the team title with 77 points. The Cardinal never trailed on Friday as it led by as many as 34 points at the 2.5-mile mark and eventually won by 32 points over No. 12 Oregon. This was Stanford’s fourth regional title in a row.

The Ducks, led by a fifth-place effort by Maddy Elmore, were the Best of the Rest in a loaded field with six nationally-ranked programs. No. 8 Washington finished third with 115 points, followed by No. 21 California Baptist in fourth with 126 points and RV Gonzaga in fifth with 173 points.

Mitchell captured top individual honors in 19:08.4, exactly four seconds ahead of Karinauskaite. Grace Fetherstonhaugh gave Oregon State two athletes in the top-3 when she finished third and Machu ended up fourth after being tied for first at the 3-mile split.

Men’s 10k Championship

Ky Robinson and the Stanford Cardinal are coming on strong.

Robinson led tenth-ranked Stanford to its third consecutive regional title by taking top individual honors in 28:55.6. He was one of three Cardinal athletes in the top-10, as Cole Sprout (fourth) and Robert DiDonato (seventh) joined him in that regard. Stanford, which had dropped to as low as No. 25 in the National Coaches’ Poll, rolled to victory by 25 points over RV Gonzaga.

The Bulldogs put three runners in the top-15 to finish a clear runner-up behind Stanford. A tiebreaker was needed to decipher third place between unranked Portland and No. 4 California Baptist with the former taking the nod thanks to the head-to-head comparison. Both the Pilots and the Lancers totaled 125 points, four fewer than fifth-place No. 22 Washington.